How to Make Your Partner Feel Like an Idiot in 3 Easy Steps
Photo by joey graham on Unsplash
We have the ability to make people feel brilliant or like total idiots in our presence.
My therapist calls it being emotionally untrustworthy. Author, speaker, and teacher Alison Armstrong refers to the phenomenon as “frog farming” in her book The Queen’s Code.
Whatever you call it, I had an uncanny ability to turn my loving, attentive partners into miserable humans who “couldn’t get anything right”.
Here’s how to ensure you do that too.
Withhold Everything (wants, needs, desires, feelings)
I used to be a massive withholder in my relationships. Why? I grew up with a gregarious sister and a busy working Mom. I spent a lot of time alone, being quiet, and watching others take up space. I didn’t exactly learn how to use my voice and it wasn’t required, my sister spoke enough for the two of us. Living an inward life was comfortable and safe. It doesn’t excuse my withholding tendencies but it does help me understand how I came to be the way I did.
The learned behavior certainly didn’t work well in my intimate relationships. When a serious boyfriend finally said something along the lines of, “I want to know what goes through your head Molly,” I was shocked and dumbfounded. Really?
It became a slow process of letting someone into my internal world and all the back rooms of my mind. Even with his expressed desire to know me more deeply I still withheld. A lot.
I withheld in the most dangerous way, what Dr. Henry Cloud author of the book Boundaries calls Invisible Boundaries. He explains it like telling someone to “guard this property diligently, because I will hold you responsible for what happens here”, and then not explaining the boundaries of the property. Or not giving any means with which to protect the property. That someone has no idea where the property begins or ends or how to protect it. It’s confusing and potentially dangerous. If we are not shown the parameters we are in for much pain.
In my romantic relationships it looked like having the expectation that my boyfriends were to make me happy and be a good partner, while never communicating what either felt good and I wanted more of or what wasn’t working and hurt my feelings.
This is step 1 to turning someone into an idiot in your relationship. Withhold all of your thoughts, desired boundaries, truths, and needs while simultaneously expecting them to be able to figure everything out and show up perfectly.
Bonus: when they fail to meet those uncommunicated expectations, be sure to overtly or covertly punish them and make them the villain.
Make Everything About You
I had asked my ex boyfriend to pick up hangers for me at Target when we first moved into our new apartment. I liked the black velvet hangers that held your clothes snug instead of the plastic cheap-o ones that everything fell off of. He came back from Target with all the items on my to-buy list and with some hangers, but not the black velvet hangers. I yelled at him and claimed he messed everything up because he came home with the wrong hangers.
Obviously, this was all his fault. Where was his attention? Didn’t he ever notice our old closet had been filled with the black velvet hangers? That those were the kind I preferred and wanted even though I hadn’t explicitly told him that before he went to the store?
His mistaken hanger purchase meant he didn’t really love me. He wasn’t attentive, didn’t notice the little things that were important. He couldn’t read my mind.
Everything was all about me. God forbid he have his own thoughts, concerns, agendas, wants, and needs when moving across the country into a new apartment.
In my mind his existence was meant to serve me and make me happy. Who wouldn’t feel crazy on that absurd and delusional pedestal they hadn’t been opted in to be on?
Don’t Receive Their Love
When we’re constantly looking for faults in our partners, they are set up to disappoint. Either because we don’t believe and trust others to show up for us or because our internal world is a prison of “never being good enough”. When we don’t know how to receive the love or generosity that is given to us, no matter what someone does, it will never feel like it’s enough.
In the hanger example, I was completely unable to receive the quite generous help of my boyfriend. He went all the way to Target, willingly, after work late at night, to pick up a list of things I had asked him to. He brought everything home by himself and was met with my crabbiness.
Instead of thanking him for all of the above or welcoming him home with a kiss and warm embrace, the first thing I noticed was how he got the wrong hangers. I made sure to make him feel like an idiot for not having figured out that I wanted the black velvet ones.
When our partners feel like they can’t get anything right despite their best efforts, eventually they will stop showing up for us and feel dumb in our presence. They will doubt everything they do, question if anything will ‘ever be good enough’ and resent us for not acknowledging the ways that they do show up.
The Antidotes:
Be clear and upfront in your communications about what you want and need. Be ok with repeating yourself, being specific, and explaining what something provides to you that you want and need if you feel misunderstood.
Work through your vulnerability issues and fears of opening up before dragging a new partner into your dysfunctional relationship dynamics.You can’t control or are at fault for what happened in your past but you are responsible for doing your own work to become a healthy and functional partner in your relationships.
Remember your partner is their own person and that they don’t share the exact frames of reference as you do. Their worlds don’t revolve around you, they are not you. What you notice and think is important is not necessarily what they do as well.
You are responsible for your own needs and your own happiness. No one else can “make you happy”, that is an inside job. You’re also responsible for taking care of your own needs first. That’s not to say that sometimes we don’t need help, but if you do, set your partner up to win.
Acknowledge and find the joy and appreciation when someone does do something for you. Even if it is not exactly how or what you’d like, express gratitude and kindly give them an adjustment if there’s more to be done to get your needs fully met.
Assume the best in others and that they’re trying their best with the tools and skills that they have been given and learned.
When we live from a place of true personal responsibility and exercise clean and clear communication, it feels good to do things for us. It allows the people in our lives to know how to win with us and if they know they will be warmly received when they’re asked to be of service, they’re a lot more likely to feel eager and willing to show up most fully.
That is how you make others feel brilliant. That is how you leave people better than you found them. That is how you have fulfilling, nourishing connections.
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